Brazilian Team Employee Steps On Field, Makes Two Saves And Runs Out Of Stadium, Team Advances To Semifinals

We have no insider knowledge on this sort of thing, so we’ll just give you the excellent explanation from the posters of this video, Golazo Clips.

Non-players driven by desperation to take it upon themselves to become emergency goalkeepers are nothing new, but few instances have been quite as bizarre as this one.

The second leg of the Brazilian fourth division quarterfinal between Tupi-MG and GO Aparecidense was even at 2-2 in the 89th minute. The first leg ended 1-1, so an aggregate score of 3-3 had both sides on edge. So when Tupi threatened to score, Aparecidense’s nervous masseur, Romildo Fonseca da Silva (known as “Lefty,” according to Globo), snuck up to one of the goal posts and when his side’s keeper charged forward to try and stop a shot that he couldn’t quite get to, the masseur stuck his foot out to make the goal-line save. A Tupi player then tried to tap in the rebound, but the masseur again made a kick save from a crab position in the goal.

Once his side was safe from anymore shots on goal, the masseur picked up his supplies and booked it out of there, hurdling the advertising hoarding and sprinting to tunnel while being chased by Tupi players and other stadium staff.

The match was halted for 20 minutes while the officials tried to figure out what just happened. When it resumed, neither side could score and Aparecidense advanced on away goals. Tupi-MG supporters threw rocks at Aparecidense’s bus as it left and the club’s board vowed to challenge the result in court.

Clearly Lefty was Man of the Match.

Idiot steps on field, idiot commits enormous infraction, idiot saves team and helps them advance to semifinals. Sounds like some weird, imperfect A-Rod analogy the year he actually was good in the playoffs.